1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for incorporating a new device in an information processing apparatus, an information processing apparatus having a function of executing the method, a program for executing the method, and a computer readable information recording medium storing the program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in information processing apparatus such as a server for which high quality processing and high performance are required, adding of hardware resource without interrupting the system is required.
For example, for a server which is applied for online banking, network shopping or such, the following items may be demanded:
1) System interruption is not allowed for 24 hours.
2) A hardware can be added according to a work load without system interruption.
3) Limited hardware resources can be dynamically allocated for a work of a higher load.
4) Hardware cost reduction is required.
In order to meet these requirements, a minimum necessary hardware resource should be safely added without interruption of an operating system (simply refereed to as an ‘OS’, hereinafter) in a system upon operation by the OS.
In this case, in the related art, a system board in which a set of devices including a CPU, a memory and an input/output unit (simply referred to as an IO, hereinafter) is incorporated in an existing system as a unit. By thus including a CPU in the unit to add, diagnosis, initialization and device configuration information creation of various types of devices such as a memory mounted to this additional hardware can be previously carried out by the CPU under the control of a firmware. As a result, the additional hardware can be safely incorporated in the existing system.
However, in a cost saving viewpoint, incorporating a hardware resource such as a system board, not having its own CPU, in an existing system is preferable.
When hardware resources, such as a CPU, a memory and an IO will be incorporated in an existing system one by one separately, the following problem may occur. A case is assumed in which, when such an additional hardware will be incorporated in the existing system, a CPU upon operation under the control of an OS of the existing system directly accesses the additional hardware, for which diagnosis, initialization and device configuration information creation have not been carried out yet. In such a case, if an access error occurs when the direct access is thus made to the additional hardware by the CPU, a system down may occur in the existing system.
Therefore, a scheme, allowing safely incorporating a hardware resource having no its own CPU, in a condition under the control of an OS, in an existing system, is demanded.
The above-mentioned problem is described in detail as follows:
First a computer system below is assumed.
This system is configured by a plurality of system boards, and each of the respective system boards have its own CPU, IO, and memory, mounted thereto.
When the system is started up, a firmware is expanded in the memory, this firmware produces device configuration information for the system in the memory, and starts up an OS.
The OS applies the device configuration information produced by the firmware to control various devices belonging to the system.
‘The OS applies the device configuration information produced by the firmware to control various devices belonging to the system’ means the following state:
That is, in this state, when processing of software S, for example, is carried out under the control of the OS, a device D, for example, can be applied actually for the processing of the software S under the control of the OS.
Further, in this state, when the device D has a trouble by some cause for example, predetermined trouble handling processing can be carried out in the processing of the software S under the control of the OS.
FIG. 1 shows one example of such a system.
In FIG. 1, SYS(X) 100 denotes a system upon operation under the control of an OS 132, and a CPU(A) 110 and a CPU(B) 120 operate in the system SYS(X) 100. MEM(X) 130 denotes a memory mounted to the system SYS(X) 100, and stores a firmware 133 (FIRM 133), device configuration information (Devinfo(X) 135) for the system SYS(X) 100 created by the firmware 133.
SB(Y) 200 denotes a system board to be newly incorporated into the existing system SYS(X) 100. MEM(Y) 230 denotes a memory on the system board SB(Y) 200, and IO(Y) denotes an IO on the system board SB(Y) 200.
It is assumed that the various devices, the firmware 133 and the OS 132 shown in FIG. 1 are under the following condition:
That is, the OS 132 and the firmware 133 operate from the memory MEM(X) 130 in the system SYS(X) 100.
The device configuration information Devinfo(X) 135 for the system SYS(X) 100 is created by the firmware 133, and is stored in the memory MEM(X) 130.
The CPU(A) 110 and the CPU(B) 120 operate under the control of the OS 132. A control system under the control of the OS 132 is expressed as a ‘control system C1’ in FIG. 1.
The system board SB(Y) 200 is connected to the system SYS(X) 100 in a manner of hardware connection, and thus, is accessible by the CPU(A). 110 and the CPU(B) 120.
The memory MEM(Y) 230 and the IO(Y) 240 are mounted to the system board SB(Y) 200. However device configuration information thereof has not been created. As a result, the memory MEM(Y) 230 and the IO(Y) 240 are not yet under the control of the OS 132 in the system SYS(X) 100.
In the system shown in FIG. 1, no CPU is mounted to the system board SB(Y) 200 to be additionally incorporated in the existing system SYS(X) 100. Therefore, diagnosis, initialization and device configuration information creation of the devices (i.e., the memory MEM(Y) 230 and the IO(Y) 240) on the system board SB(Y) 200 should be carried out by the CPU(A) 110 or the CPU(B) 120 of the existing system SYS(X) 100, for the purpose of placing these devices (i.e., the memory MEM(Y) 230 and the IO(Y) 240) on the system board SB(Y) 200, thus connected to the existing system SYS(X) 100, under the control of the existing system SYS(X) 100.
Therefore, in the related art, as shown in Steps S1 and S2 of FIG. 2, the CPU(A) 110 or the CPU(B) 120 under the control of the OS 132 directly accesses the hardware resources (the memory MEM(Y) 230 and the IO(Y) 240) to additionally incorporate, and carries out diagnosis, initialization and device configuration information creation.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 2002-132741 discloses the related art.